I have found it really difficult this last week saying good bye to everyone. I can't believe I am leaving tomorrow morning for Paris for more things with the organization then returning home to the states late Sunday night. It just doesn't feel real since I am still here. Then last week I had to say good bye to half of my class who went to Denmark for their English class. The other half stayed with me and we all started to get along really well at the the end of my exchange. We did get a class picture of the class that was still here this last week and I got a picture with everyone I am close to. I found it especially hard saying goodbye to half of my host familly that I see pretty much every day of the week since we all became close. I know it will have to be wierd for them too not having another daughter in the house after school almost everyday. Then evern worse tomorrow morning when I go to the train station to take the TGV to Paris I know I will probably cry since I have some other AFS students, friends from school, and my familly coming to see me off. Oh well I will come back to see everyone one day=) or they can come to the states one day and we can all meet up. I love all these people they are so nice to me and I have to say that the exchange students from all the different countries are my favorite people. You can talk to them about everything and you all become best friends after an hour, and the best part is that they always know what you are going through. One good thing is that now when I want to travel places I know people in other countries that I can visit and I have about five or six new penpals=).
Looking back on my exchange I think one of my favorite things that I decided to do was when I had free time in the city or wherever I would go and explore a new place or just walk and see where it led me at least once a week. Doing so I found some old buildings with lots of history, old castle ruins, and some cool little shops. I found it interesting because it led me see things that weren't completely touristic and that not everyone who comes to France will see or find. The other things I will have to say that I am happy I did was always finding times to get together with people and trying lots of different foods. I didn't like everything I ate here, but I am happy I tried it and would have been disappointed later if I didn't.
Finally since it's my last post I just want to thank everyone who has been supporting me here with this semester abroad. I want to thank the Capper family(I am sorry if I accidentily mispelled the name!) for helping me get to be here, and my familly imparticularly. It was such a great experiance even if I didn't love every minute of it and there were some pretty boring times. I will miss it here, but I will definatly not forget my memories of things that happened or my friends! So thanks again! Merci beaucoup!=)
-Lydia M. Johnson=)
Friday, January 25, 2013
Friday, January 11, 2013
Almost Finished
Dear American friends, (In the words of my host mother who is always telling me to start by saying that.)
I can't believe I am here with my family for only two more weeks. I am honestly running out of interesting things to talk about...that means I will have to search. On the other hand I will tell everyone right now that I will probably only have time to write one more time before I go home. I have to finish my project for AFS Lorraine and my other school projects as well as start packing and all that fun stuff that comes with having to go home...I am not to thrilled about it. Oh well it can't be helped because at the same time I am ready to come see all of my friends and family and especially to start again with my normal non-french highschool. It's not that I don't like the highschool here it's just that I prefer my normal one. The dys are counting down and lets just say that the time went by really fast. It feels like not too long ago that I arrived and was to nervous to talk at school and everything like that.(though I will say that that feeling only lasted a week or so).
Anyway it's that time of year here that I will say that I hate shopping because here in France pretty much store has sales that everyone calls the "Soldes" It's even more annoying in the big city, but on the bright side almost everything is half off.=) And with school since we have to buy our textbooks and the books we use to analyze in our French literature class it makes buying books a lot cheaper. Personally, I feel like I am in college with that because it's like buying your textbooks and the schedule is similar to how a college schedule runs. Then there are also student dorms at my school for the students who live in towns farther away. The students come on Monday and return to their normal families on the weekend, so it's not exactly the same but similar. Another thing I find wierd at school is that we have two different types of homework, we have normal homework and DM's. The normal homework is the normal exercises and everything, but I learned that it's never graded and the teacher never checks to see if it's done. Then the DM is the same type of exercises except it seems like all of the students try their best to make the paper they write it on as neat as possible and the teacher actually comes around and grades it during the following week.
Now I have to ask myself what other random thing can I think of to talk about that's somewhat different or interesting. So I guess I found yself realizing this past week or two that every city no matter how little it is in France has a town crest. You can sometimes find it on a little gold circle in the street, and you can almost always find it on the town hall building or the most well-known public building. I asked one time why each city has one and I am a bit disappointed to say that sadly everyone I asked had no idea. I found it interesting and I tried imagining what it could be used for and still have yet to come up with an idea except for that it could be some sort of decoration. When I find out, which I plan on doing before I come back, I will try to tell you why. On that note since I honestly can't think of anything to say, Happy New Year again and hope to see everyone soon.=)
I can't believe I am here with my family for only two more weeks. I am honestly running out of interesting things to talk about...that means I will have to search. On the other hand I will tell everyone right now that I will probably only have time to write one more time before I go home. I have to finish my project for AFS Lorraine and my other school projects as well as start packing and all that fun stuff that comes with having to go home...I am not to thrilled about it. Oh well it can't be helped because at the same time I am ready to come see all of my friends and family and especially to start again with my normal non-french highschool. It's not that I don't like the highschool here it's just that I prefer my normal one. The dys are counting down and lets just say that the time went by really fast. It feels like not too long ago that I arrived and was to nervous to talk at school and everything like that.(though I will say that that feeling only lasted a week or so).
Anyway it's that time of year here that I will say that I hate shopping because here in France pretty much store has sales that everyone calls the "Soldes" It's even more annoying in the big city, but on the bright side almost everything is half off.=) And with school since we have to buy our textbooks and the books we use to analyze in our French literature class it makes buying books a lot cheaper. Personally, I feel like I am in college with that because it's like buying your textbooks and the schedule is similar to how a college schedule runs. Then there are also student dorms at my school for the students who live in towns farther away. The students come on Monday and return to their normal families on the weekend, so it's not exactly the same but similar. Another thing I find wierd at school is that we have two different types of homework, we have normal homework and DM's. The normal homework is the normal exercises and everything, but I learned that it's never graded and the teacher never checks to see if it's done. Then the DM is the same type of exercises except it seems like all of the students try their best to make the paper they write it on as neat as possible and the teacher actually comes around and grades it during the following week.
Now I have to ask myself what other random thing can I think of to talk about that's somewhat different or interesting. So I guess I found yself realizing this past week or two that every city no matter how little it is in France has a town crest. You can sometimes find it on a little gold circle in the street, and you can almost always find it on the town hall building or the most well-known public building. I asked one time why each city has one and I am a bit disappointed to say that sadly everyone I asked had no idea. I found it interesting and I tried imagining what it could be used for and still have yet to come up with an idea except for that it could be some sort of decoration. When I find out, which I plan on doing before I come back, I will try to tell you why. On that note since I honestly can't think of anything to say, Happy New Year again and hope to see everyone soon.=)
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Holidays
Happy New Year Everyone!!!
I hope this year is better then the last!(That might be difficult seeing as I spent four months of it in another country) Oh well=) Things here in France have been moving non-stop with the holidays. I spent most of them with my host family and their other family members. It's been fun. For Christmas I learned that at least in my host family here most of the traditions are almost exactly the same. A larger then normal dinner even though the foods change slightly, and spending time talking with everyone.
Then the next couple days after Christmas my family and I went back to Paris to go visit all the monuments and famous places possible. I am proud to say that I have seen way more museums and old buildings then I can handle in three days which is suprisingly difficult. I did get the chance to see what Paris looks like with all the holiday lights and decorations our, and let me just say it's so beautiful. It also seemed to be a special year for some buildings. It was the 850th year of the Cathederal Notre Dame de Paris, so there were special decorations up around there and a temporary stage that let the visitors look at the details on the building more closely. Then for the Lafayette Galeries, they were celebrating their hundreth year I think. They had decorations as well and a huge christmas tree under the glass dome made with huge disks of Sworvaski crystal and other random things that made it really pretty as well. Then of course all of the other streets and everything had the normal decorations up. I also learned that there are some interesing places that people can take tours of in Paris. Just to give an example if someone wanted they could take a tour of the sewers and things like that. Why someone would want to I am not sure but okay. Then after we left Paris we went to Versailles and I agree it is beautiful and I was suprised at how the gardens looked because it is technically winter. They were still green and the fountains and everything were running so it was nice. I did find it a little odd to see people taking their morning jog in the gardens, but it makes sense since to me I looked at it as if they were treating it as a public park.
Finally as for the New Years, We had guests over at the house yesterday. My family and them spent maybe four or so hours eating dinner. I was supriingly not bored. Then right before midnight we set off fireworks and I learned that when the clock hits minight it's in the French culture to "bise" everyone(the kiss on both cheeks) for the New Year. One of the guests asked me if we did something like that right for midnight too, and sadly I honestly couldn't think of anything that is the same for everyone. Maybe it's just so normal that I didn't think of it differently or we don't have one. I am not really sure. Other then that I have one more week before I start school again. It's wierd to think that I have about three weeks of school left till this is all over. On that note Happy New Year again and i'm still hoping everyone's well.
I hope this year is better then the last!(That might be difficult seeing as I spent four months of it in another country) Oh well=) Things here in France have been moving non-stop with the holidays. I spent most of them with my host family and their other family members. It's been fun. For Christmas I learned that at least in my host family here most of the traditions are almost exactly the same. A larger then normal dinner even though the foods change slightly, and spending time talking with everyone.
Then the next couple days after Christmas my family and I went back to Paris to go visit all the monuments and famous places possible. I am proud to say that I have seen way more museums and old buildings then I can handle in three days which is suprisingly difficult. I did get the chance to see what Paris looks like with all the holiday lights and decorations our, and let me just say it's so beautiful. It also seemed to be a special year for some buildings. It was the 850th year of the Cathederal Notre Dame de Paris, so there were special decorations up around there and a temporary stage that let the visitors look at the details on the building more closely. Then for the Lafayette Galeries, they were celebrating their hundreth year I think. They had decorations as well and a huge christmas tree under the glass dome made with huge disks of Sworvaski crystal and other random things that made it really pretty as well. Then of course all of the other streets and everything had the normal decorations up. I also learned that there are some interesing places that people can take tours of in Paris. Just to give an example if someone wanted they could take a tour of the sewers and things like that. Why someone would want to I am not sure but okay. Then after we left Paris we went to Versailles and I agree it is beautiful and I was suprised at how the gardens looked because it is technically winter. They were still green and the fountains and everything were running so it was nice. I did find it a little odd to see people taking their morning jog in the gardens, but it makes sense since to me I looked at it as if they were treating it as a public park.
Finally as for the New Years, We had guests over at the house yesterday. My family and them spent maybe four or so hours eating dinner. I was supriingly not bored. Then right before midnight we set off fireworks and I learned that when the clock hits minight it's in the French culture to "bise" everyone(the kiss on both cheeks) for the New Year. One of the guests asked me if we did something like that right for midnight too, and sadly I honestly couldn't think of anything that is the same for everyone. Maybe it's just so normal that I didn't think of it differently or we don't have one. I am not really sure. Other then that I have one more week before I start school again. It's wierd to think that I have about three weeks of school left till this is all over. On that note Happy New Year again and i'm still hoping everyone's well.
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